Live updates

Nigel Farage: Russell Brand is 'lightweight and has chest hair make up artist'. Credit: PA

Nigel Farage has hit back at Russell Brand, saying the comedian and activist was "lighter weight than expected" and has a "personal make-up artist to straighten his chest hair".

Everyone fancied that Mr Brand and I might butt heads, but actually, as we entered the studio, and his personal make-up artist straightened his chest hair for him, I kid you not, I realised that perhaps he might be a bit lighter weight than expected.

For all Mr Brand’s posturing, he was really quite limp. Maybe it was the chapstick that his make-up artist applied to his lips at the last moment, but he didn’t seem to utter a word of sense.

Comedian Russell Brand has called on thousands of protesters to be part of a "peaceful, effortless, joyful revolution" that seizes power back from Westminster.

The former Big Brother's Big Mouth presenter, who this year implored readers of the New Statesman magazine to abandon the current political system, told crowds gathered in London's Parliament Square that MPs no longer represented the people.

Speaking in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament at the end of a march marking the one-year anniversary of the People's Assembly being formed, Brand stripped off his T-shirt and replaced it with one carrying the message "Firefighters rescue people not bankers".

An estimated 50,000 people took part in the march, which started at the BBC in Portland Place where protesters accused the broadcaster of ignoring the plight of impoverished Britons.

"By the time the polls had closed and it was too late to take part, I was feeling really uncomfortable: the person who chooses not to vote - cannot even be bothered to write 'none of the above' on a ballot paper - disqualifies himself from passing any comment at all."